New Forest residents warned to remain vigilant after recent rise in thefts from motor vehicles

Officers in the New Forest are warning local residents to be vigilant after a number of thefts from motor vehicles across the district in recent weeks.

During this time, we have thefts in both the Ashurst and Marchwood areas.

As such, this is a timely reminder to residents across the New Forest not to leave personal belongings or valuables in motor vehicles overnight.

If your vehicle is parked on a driveway or in-front of a garage, you may want to consider installing a CCTV camera covering the area which your vehicle is parked or installing a motion-detector dash-cam. This way, it may serve as a deterrent to potential thieves as they know that they will be caught on camera.

Most burglaries are committed by opportunists. These are often spur-of-the-moment decisions, made when they see valuables left on view or lapses in security. Personal items such as mobile phones and tablets, handbags and work tools left somewhere obvious can be an attractive target, so please do take them indoors with you every night.

Our officers in the community are continuing to follow-up on all reports of thefts from motor vehicles, so please be reassured that we are doing all we can to protect the community and bring these offenders to justice.

We would urge you to remove all personal belongings from your vehicle each night. While this might seem laborious at the time, it might just save you from becoming a victim of crime.

If you see anything suspicious, please report it to us directly by calling 101, or via our online reporting portal on the Hampshire Constabulary website.

As always, if a crime is in progress, please dial 999.